Manchester City produced a ruthless performance as they put nine goals past Burton Albion in the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg last night.

Four goals from Gabriel Jesus, and strikes from Kevin De Bruyne, Oleksandr Zinchenko, Phil Foden, Kyle Walker and Riyad Mahrez secured City's place in the record books with the biggest ever margin of victory in an English semi-final.

After the game, Pep Guardiola said City aimed for a big win, saying: "We spoke about that at half-time - to play simple, let them run and try to score more goals. It's the best way to respect the competition and respect the opponents.

"If you are 4-0 up and forget to continue, you don't have respect for the competition or your opponent. The best way is do what we have to do."

Stick with us for all the latest news and transfer gossip coming from the Etihad today.

Key Events

Pep Guardiola has a problem on his hands

Manchester City’s under-21s have been drawn away against Sunderland in the quarter-final of the Checkatrade Trophy.

BUT, the tie is to be played on the same week as City’s return leg of the Carabao Cup at Burton Albion.

Does the City manager allow the cream of the academy crop to travel to Sunderland, or do they get first-team exposure at Burton in light of City’s nine-goal cushion?

Tricky...

16:54

Man City vs Burnley FA Cup tie date announced

Manchester City’s FA Cup fourth round tie with Burnley will kick off at the traditional time of 3pm on a Saturday.

The game is not scheduled for television, and so will take place on Saturday, January 26.

That comes three days after the Blues play the second leg of their Carabao Cup semi-final at Burton Albion – but with a 9-0 lead from the first leg, Pep Guardiola is expected to play a seriously weakened team at the Pirelli Stadium and give his first team stars a night off.

That means he could field a strong team against Burnley, and still play his first choice XI at Newcastle on Tuesday, January 29, three days after the cup match.

This will be the second successive season that the Blues have played host to the Clarets – they beat them 4-1 at the Etihad Stadium last season with two goals from Sergio Aguero, and one each from Leroy Sane and Bernardo Silva.

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND - JANUARY 06: Sergio Aguero of Manchester City shoots during the The Emirates FA Cup Third Round match between Manchester City and Burnley at Etihad Stadium on January 6, 2018 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

16:01

Odds for Isco's next club

He’d be a nice fit in a Pep Guardiola side!

15:35

United and Liverpool mocking Man City crowd again - it's hypocrisy

At times, it seems Manchester United and Liverpool fans spend half of their Twitter time proclaiming how much they don’t care about Manchester City … and the other half talking about them.

Predictably enough, the emphasis was on the large number of empty seats at the Etihad Stadium, with the ground less than two-thirds full as a crowd of 32,000 rocked up for the Carabao Cup semi-final first leg against Burton Albion.

Twitter worthies Gary Lineker and Jamie Carragher have both poked fun at the Blues for their attendances this week – all good, clean fun, but still wide of the mark.

Lineker said that City were threatening to “score more goals than than there are spectators tonight” as City thrashed Burton 9-0, perhaps as much a compliment to the Blues’ ravenous goal appetite as it was a joke about the crowd figure.

It was a bit of banter, fair enough in an age when even the most light-hearted of Twitter jokes can bring an avalanche of po-faced umbrage.

The final score of 9-0 is on show during the League Cup first leg semi-final football match between Manchester City and Burton Albion at the Etihad stadium in Manchester, northwest England on January 9, 2019. (Photo by Oli SCARFF / AFP) (Photo credit should read OLI SCARFF/AFP/Getty Images)

14:24

Ajax's De Jong rules out January exit

Frenkie De Jong has no intention of leaving Ajax this month amid interest from Manchester City and Barcelona.

“I don’t know what other people are doing, but personally I would like it if the whole group stay together.

“We have had a fairly decent first half to the season.

“The atmosphere in the group is very good and we have a lot of quality - so I would be disappointed if people left.”

Frenkie de Jong (Image: Getty Images)

14:12

Government called on to introduce "fans fare scheme"

The government is being called on to enforce a “fans fare scheme” which would give football supporters more flexibility when travelling to rescheduled fixtures.

Shadow sport minister Dr Rosena Allin-Khan told ministers that football fans were “often stung” when fixtures were rescheduled for television.

Manchester United and Manchester City games are among the games chiefly targeted for broadcast by BT Sport, Sky Sports and the BBC as they attract large audiences.

This sees their games moved from the usual default slot of a Saturday 3pm kick off often to early on Saturday morning or late on Saturday evening - or even moved to a Friday, Sunday or Monday fixture with only a matters of several weeks notice.

Sterling pens letter to victim of racist abuse

Raheem Sterling has told a young Manchester City fan to ‘stand tall and be proud of who you are’ in the face of racist abuse.

The City and England forward took it upon himself to pen a letter to Ethan Ross after the youngster’s grandmother Sue reached out to the winger, who was himself recently the victim of alleged racist abuse.

City fan had perfect response to Lineker jibe

Gary Lineker took aim at Manchester City’s fans over the attendance at the Etihad for Wednesday night’s Carabao Cup win over Burton Albion.

There were just over 32,000 people in attendance for the Blues’ 9-0 drubbing of Nigel Clough’s side - more than 22,000 fewer than the amount that watched City’s 2-1 win over Liverpool six days earlier.

And Lineker mocked City’s fans after Kevin De Bruyne’s early opener, writing on Twitter: “De Bruyne nods in from close range. Manchester City might score more goals than than there are spectators tonight.”

One City fan responded to the Match of the Day host with a dose of realism, responding: “My Mum would love to have gone but she only gets £70 pension a week. This week she had a tv licence for £160 to pay your £12m a year salary. She can’t afford anything. Think about that before you tweet nonsense from your multi-million pound home.”

Jesus eyeing more game time after scoring four vs Burton

Gabriel Jesus is targeting regular first-team football after he scored four goals in a game for the first time in his career against Burton last night:

“Players like me want to play more to help the team and we went out to win,” Jesus told Sky after the match.

“I have never scored four before in my career, I’m so happy. We played well and with respect to Burton, that’s important.”

Gabriel Jesus notched four goals against Burton Albion

09:38

Aguero, Mendy and Delph star in Tinder promo video

Bernardo Silva taking more stick from his teammates.

09:15

What Guardiola said about Solskjaer last night

Pep Guardiola has praised Manchester United’s interim manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and admitted the Norwegian’s start to life at Old Trafford has been better than the beginning of his Manchester City tenure.

Solskjaer has guided United to five victories in a row in all competitions since taking over from axed manager Jose Mourinho six days before Christmas.

The 45-year-old’s acid test will come this weekend when United face Tottenham at Wembley but Guardiola has been impressed by what he’s seen so far from the United great.

“His start is much better than mine, I lost my first game and drew the second [after being appointed in 2016],” Guardiola said after City’s win over Burton.

“He won all the games. He is a young manager, getting incredible results. I saw a few minutes of games they played and they played good.”

08:45

Punter pocketed £8k from City win

What a bet!

08:41

Zinchenko: We wanted more goals

Oleksandr Zinchenko scored in City’s demolition of Burton last night and said the Blues were hungry for even more goals.

“It’s the first time I’ve played in a win like this,” he said. “To be fair we scored a lot of goals, we wanted more, and our fans did too. We wished we could get 10, maybe next time.”

Asked if his strike, as wayward cross that found the top corner, was intentional, he joked:

“Was my goal a cross?! A little respect please.

“At half time Pep said keep going in the same way, the same spirit and if we can score more.”

Oleksandr Zinchenko scored in the win against Burton

08:16KEY EVENT

City 'lining up Rice as Fernandinho replacement'

Manchester City are lining up Declan Rice as a possible replacement for the 33-year-old Fernandinho, according to reports.

It is claimed by The Sun that Guardiola will keep tabs on Rice for the rest of the season before deciding if he is of the requisite quality to play at the highest level on a consistent basis.

Rice only recently signed a new, long-term contract at West Ham and it is claimed that the London club would command a transfer fee in excess of £50million for their highly-rated holding midfielder.

Man City obliterate Burton 9-0 without hitting top gear

Manchester City flattened Burton Albion at the Etihad to all but seal their place in the Carabao Cup final.

A second successive home match against lower-league opposition saw an even bigger thrashing as a strong Blues side had far too much for the visitors.

Pep Guardiola’s team selection made good on his word to take every competition seriously. There was room for quarter-final stars Aro Muric (20) and Eric Garcia (18 on the day) but the mercy ended there with a midfield three of Kevin De Bruyne, Ilkay Gundogan and David Silva proving familiarly formidable.

Having gone ahead so early, strains of the December complacency crept in.

Everything went as flat as Liverpool was fierce as City meandered along in front of an expectant crowd awaiting more goals.